A team of El Segundo-based military retirees spent their Veterans Day traveling to the typhoon-ravaged Philippines where they plan to set up a makeshift hospital in one of the island nation’s hardest hit areas.

Fifteen members of Team Rubicon, which includes firefighters, nurses and paramedics, were expected to arrive by plane Monday evening at Manila International Airport and make their way by military transport to Tanauan, a city devastated by Typhoon Hyain, organization spokesman Mike Lee said.

“Their backgrounds are diverse – field medics, search and rescue, swift-water extraction,” Lee said. “We found that a lot of the training you learn in the military is perfect for disaster relief.”

Tens of thousands of people may be dead in Tanauan after rain and winds of 195 miles per hour hammered the area on Friday.

Up to 10,000 people are feared dead in Tacloban City, which is about 525 miles away from Tanauan. Rescue workers have described scenes of devastation including cities reduced to rubble and bodies strewed along roadsides.

Calling it “Operation: Seabird,” Team Rubicon members will establish a full-scale field hospital in Tacloban that can handle up to 100 patients at a time.

Mammoth Medical Missions, a nonprofit from Mammoth Lakes, has sent 17 surgeons to work in the hospital, Lee said. Santa Barbara-based organization Direct Relief has provided medical supplies to outfit the hospital and a group of Norwegian military veterans are expected to help.

Team Rubicon, comprised of volunteers from throughout the United States who left their regular jobs and took personal vacation time to help, started planning the trip while monitoring weather reports before the typhoon struck.

Members will assess what else needs to be done and whether more volunteers will head to the Philippines, Lee said. They will stay about a week.

“The main focus is going to be search and rescue, patient extraction, medical triage and medical relief,” Lee said.

Formed in 2010, Team Rubicon united military veterans with first responders at disasters throughout the world, including at earthquakes in Haiti and Turkey, tornadoes across Missouri and Oklahoma, flooding in Colorado and refugee camps in Burma.

About 350 volunteers worked for six weeks to help residents in Rockaway Beach, N.Y., and Union Beach, N.J., after Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast in 2012.

Lee described the Philippines mission as “one of the most complex” and toughest that the organization has undertaken.

“There’s just a lot of work to do,” he said.

“The biggest thing we need is (monetary) donations. It’s going to be a very expensive operation. We can put your money to good work.”

Organizations throughout the world, including the American Red Cross, are seeking financial donations, preferring money to buy medical supplies, antibiotics, fortified biscuits, water and other necessities for the relief effort.

Team Rubicon also is encouraging people to register to serve as potential volunteers if they have the skills needed to help, including doctors, nurses and firefighters. Registration can be completed at www.teamrubuconusa.org.

Larry Altman has covered crime and court proceedings in Southern California since 1987. A graduate of Cal State Northridge, where he served as editor of the college newspaper, Altman has worked for the Daily Breeze since 1990. The Society of Professional Journalists named him a "Distinguished Journalist" in Los Angeles in 2006. Altman's work was featured twice on CBS' “48 Hours” and he appeared eight times with “Nancy Grace," who called him "dear." He has covered hundreds of homicides and many trials. Altman has crawled through a mausoleum to open a coffin, confronted husbands who killed their wives, wives who killed their husbands, and his coverage helped put a child molester and a murderer in prison. In his spare time, Altman is an avid Los Angeles Lakers and Dodgers fan, is the commissioner of a Fantasy Baseball league with several other current and former newspapermen, runs a real estate empire and likes to watch old movies on TCM.

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